Publications

2025
Working Paper

Global Harms, Local Profits: How the Uneven Costs of Natural Disasters Affect Support for Green Political Platforms

By: Silvia Pianta and Paula Rettl

Large-scale fires are becoming increasingly common due to climate change. While conventional wisdom suggests that firsthand experiences with natural disasters foster green coalitions by raising awareness of environmental degradation, we propose an alternative... View Details

Keywords: Climate Impact; Politics; Environmental Issues; Environmental Protection; Economic Analysis; Economic Behavior; Economic Geography; Economy; Economics; Climate Change; Environmental Management; Political Elections; Natural Disasters; Green Technology; Environmental Sustainability; Latin America; Brazil

2020
Article

How Signal Intensity of Behavioral Orientations Affects Crowdfunding Performance: The Role of Entrepreneurial Orientation in Crowdfunding Business Ventures

By: Goran Calic and Anton Shevchenko

Backers assess a crowdfunding campaign description not merely for a project’s capacity to deliver a reward, but also for the manner in which that reward is delivered. Viewed through the lens of signalling theory, crowdfunding performance depends on the signals of... View Details

Keywords: Crowdfunding; Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurship; Consumer Behavior; Communication Strategy

August 14, 2020
Comment

How Has COVID-19 Affected Health Insurance Offered by Small Businesses in the U.S.? Early Evidence from a Survey

By: Leemore S. Dafny, Yin Wei Soon, Zoë Cullen and Christopher T. Stanton

As the COVID-19 pandemic stretches toward its third quarter, loss of health insurance coverage has not figured prominently in the public debate. Data in this report demonstrate why that is, but also suggest that the apparent stability is fragile, with potentially... View Details

Keywords: Health Pandemics; Health Care and Treatment; Insurance; Small Business; Surveys; United States

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November 2022
Article

The Sharp Spikes of Poverty: Financial Scarcity Is Related to Higher Levels of Distress Intensity in Daily Life

By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Erin L. Frey, Sandra C. Matz, Bertus F. Jeronimus and Adam D. Galinsky

Although income is an important predictor of life satisfaction, the precise forces that drive this relationship remain unclear. We propose that financial resources afford individuals a path to reducing the distressing impact of everyday hassles, in turn increasing... View Details

Keywords: Distress; Affect; Control; Financial Scarcity; Life Satisfaction; Income; Poverty; Well-being

June 27, 2017
Article

Male and Female Entrepreneurs Get Asked Different Questions by VCs —and It Affects How Much Funding They Get

By: Dana Kanze, Laura Huang, Mark Conley and E. Tory Higgins

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Research Summary

How Strategic Orientations Affect the Performance of Cross-Functional New Product Development Teams: The Mediating Role of Proficiency in Predevelopment Activities

with Nukhet Haramncioglu and Tomas Hult View Details

2023
Article

Patriotic Capitalism, Geopolitics and the Boardroom: Should Directors Consider Devotion to Country When Making Decisions That Affect Their Companies?

By: Michael Montelongo

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Decision Choices and Conditions; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Business and Government Relations; International Relations

2020
Working Paper

Social Attachment to Place and Psychic Costs of Geographic Mobility: How Distance from Hometown and Vacation Flexibility Affect Job Performance

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Ohchan Kwon

Using a natural experiment and field interviews, this paper studies how social attachment to place imposes psychic costs on workers who experience geographic mobility. This is especially salient when workers are assigned to locations far from their hometown, which may... View Details

Keywords: Distance From Hometown; Social Attachment To Place; Psychic Costs; Worker Performance; Natural Experiment; Geographic Location; Familiarity; Employees; Performance; India

SSRN

Article

Narrow Networks on the Health Insurance Exchanges: What Do They Look Like and How Do They Affect Pricing? A Case Study of Texas

By: Leemore S. Dafny, Igal Hendel and Nathan Wilson

09 Nov 2023
HBS Case

What Will It Take to Confront the Invisible Mental Health Crisis in Business?

As a finance specialist, Harvard Business School Professor Lauren Cohen works to understand the dynamics that make businesses thrive. In his recent research on family companies, he has found one common thread among successful firms: They actively support their... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin; Health

07 Jun 2004
Research & Ideas

What Drives Supply Chain Behavior?

To err is human, but most research on supply chain management doesn't take psychological, functional, incentive-related, and other biases into account. HBS professors Rogelio Oliva and Noel Watson have devised their latest research to learn how such behavioral dynamics... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston

15 May 2017
Sharpening Your Skills

The Promises and Limitations of Big Data

Source: peterhowell Although many people claim we have entered the era of big data, research firms tell us that most collected information is never used. It sits uncleaned, unanalyzed, unused in databases. But when data analytics is used successfully, organizations... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Financial Services; Utilities; Public Administration; Health

24 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

The Yelp Factor: Are Consumer Reviews Good for Business?

In recent years, consumer review sites including Yelp, Citysearch, and TripAdvisor have become the first stop for recommendations on everything from dinner to dentists. Along the way, they've earned a loyal following from fans, but also the ire of businesses that find... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Food & Beverage

13 Aug 2012
Research & Ideas

When Good Incentives Lead to Bad Decisions

readily be reclaimed by investors in the firm who lost money." In a new research paper, coauthored with World Bank economists Martin Kanz and Leora Klapper, Cole explores how various performance incentives affect lending decisions... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Banking

05 Mar 2009
What Do You Think?

How Frank or Deceptive Should Leaders Be?

Summing Up How should context affect leaders' candor and transparency? Candor, transparency, and optimism generally trump dishonesty, deception, and pessimism as characteristics of good leaders. But is this true at all times? Conclusions... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

2016
Working Paper

Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com

By: Michael Luca

Do online consumer reviews affect restaurant demand? I investigate this question using a novel dataset combining reviews from the website Yelp.com and restaurant data from the Washington State Department of Revenue. Because Yelp prominently displays a restaurant's... View Details

Keywords: Revenue; Network Effects; Reputation; Social and Collaborative Networks; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry; Washington (state, US)

SSRN

01 Nov 2022
What Do You Think?

Why Aren’t Business Leaders More Vocal About Immigration Policy?

policy issues, but whether business leaders are expressing enough “voice” about a matter that affects their talent pool as well as the overall growth rate of the US economy. The question arises at a time when one can ask whether the US... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

June 2000 (Revised December 2001)
Case

Performance Pay at Safelite Auto Glass (A)

By: Brian J. Hall, Edward Lazear and Carleen Madigan

Describes a company's changing of its compensation and incentive plan. In particular, it shows how a change from hourly pay to piece rate pay (for windshield installers) affected productivity, pay, and turnover. View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Performance Productivity; Change; Compensation and Benefits; Service Industry; Auto Industry

Educators

Purchase

Article

Investor Sentiment in the Stock Market

By: Malcolm Baker and Jeffrey Wurgler

We examine how investor sentiment affects the cross-section of stock returns. Theory predicts that a broad wave of sentiment will disproportionately affect stocks whose valuations are highly subjective and are difficult to arbitrage. We test this prediction by... View Details

Keywords: Financial Markets; Stocks; Investment Return; Valuation; Forecasting and Prediction; Volatility; Price; Risk and Uncertainty; Behavioral Finance